I'm Finally Winning at OTB Chess

This month I started playing OTB chess tournaments again, and have enjoyed some success - 200 ELO rating gain USCF. If you have been following this blog, you know that this didn't happen overnight - I've been working at this for ... 2 years (more...?)

During my time away from tournament chess, I played blitz. A LOT of blitz - on the Other Platform. I tried not to care about rating there (although sometimes I got a bit tilted... just like anybody) - my main objective was to 1) practice my openings and 2) learn to play solid, positional moves instead of calculating for tactics on every single move. Just. Move.

This mindset helped in the games I won (and even in the ones I lost) because I was moving "by muscle memory" rather than trying to calculate too early in the opening. As a result, I was not down on the clock and often reached a playable position.

Sometimes just a good, positional improvement is all you need. You can't be looking for tactics and trying to make something happen on every single move! Internalizing this mindset helped tremendously.

(I also played at least weekly at Bryant Park, both blitz and without a clock.That kept my board vision sharp, and I could discuss games with the strong players there).

Winning with the Spanish

After one slow start at a Weekly Wednesday Marshall game (where I didn't play my prep! Ugh!), I ventured to a Marshall G50 U1600 and had my best tournament ever - 3.0/4 - winning the class prize.

These tournaments are majority scholastic players, and are a bit of a madhouse. Anyway, here is my first win:

I also won my second game and drew my third - my first time being undefeated at an OTB tournament.

Playing the Sicilian Right

Next, I returned to Marshall Wednesday evening for the 2nd round of the weekly tournament. I had botched a Sicilian the week before as white, but Caissa smiled upon me and granted a second chance at the opening (with a different opponent, of course). Having agonized over my last game, I was resolved to play my prep "by muscle memory" and not second-guess myself.

The result: I was able to get into a comfortable position out of the opening and maneuver to a crushing kingside attack:

Another G50 Open

Finally, i returned to Marshall for another tournament. They had scheduled an ALTO (At Least Twenty One) tournament, but unfortunately it was cancelled and I opted to enter the Open instead. This was another event dominated by scholastic players, but - being an Open - my opponents skewed older.

The bad news: I lost two games and only won a single game. The good news: that lone win was against a 1727 rated opponent edit: 1864 (live rating) opponent:

What's Next

I have a lot to work on. If I want to keep playing the Spanish, I'll have to study middlegame ideas. Knowing the opening lines is getting me into a playable position - especially against scholastic opponents who are somewhat weaker at positional games. But I have to confess my own ideas on how to proceed after the opening are rather vague - despite two passes through Simple Chess by Michael Stean, which focuses on the Spanish extensively.

Likewise, my endgame is weak. Well, not so much my endgame but how to liquidate to a winning (or at least drawn) endgame. I don't think I need to run out and buy an endgame course just yet, but I need to be more cognizant of it in my future games.